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Subject: Re: null move search reduction factor

Author: Stuart Cracraft

Date: 21:32:01 06/25/04

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On June 25, 2004 at 19:27:32, Andrew Williams wrote:

>On June 25, 2004 at 16:15:44, Stuart Cracraft wrote:
>
>>So, normally in the literature I've read
>>(and code I've implemented, it's been to
>>do a null move search with R set to 2,
>>so search(...depth-1-R).
>>
>>But in large searches of 8, 9, 10, 11 and
>>beyond in full width searches, the reduction
>>of 2 does not seem to help as much as
>>larger reductions due to the much smaller
>>subtrees that the null move searches has
>>to search with an R of 2.
>>
>>My question is: what have people done
>>to experiment with larger figures of R and
>>verify the return value is effective
>>and horrid moves aren't produced?
>>
>>I've used R set to ply/2 and ply-2
>>where ply is the original target depth
>>of the overall iteration. The savings
>>in time is substantial and the moves
>>look the same or as good, the tree searched is
>>drastically smaller of course, but
>>I am worried about quality.
>>
>>Is R of 2 or 3 a holdover from the slow
>>computing days in the literature and nowadays
>>you are using higher settings?
>>
>>Assume everything else about the null move
>>search is held the same (not done in endgames,
>>not done in the original position, no more
>>than 1 null move in a row during the search
>>without an intervening normal move, etc.)
>>
>>Thanks ahead,
>>
>>Stuart
>
>Ernst Heinz has published interesting papers on adaptive null move pruning
>(varying R with remaining depth and remaining material). I would guess that this
>is pretty standard now, at least among amateurs. Omid David Tabibi has published
>recently on verified null move pruning.
>

Hi -- I implemented the Tabibi/Netanyahu scheme from their ICCA/ICGA
article today after reading your note and doing a google search for
their article (found it at www.cs.biu.ac.il).

Early results are promising showing verified null move with R=3 almost
as good or better in most iterations than plain R=2.

Thanks.

Stuart



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